...did any one else (who had played the original release) find this version to be somewhat dumbed down?

no roller mines on the beach? first play through having to take them out with no gravity gun was intense, now i just stroll past some hopper mines no sweat. drop combine soldiers like im freeman... i remember getting roughed up alot more (original minerva had a custom skills.cfg), even the a.i seemed dumbed down,, i remember being killed alot, more grenades, smarter combine who took cover more and not just storming me (or running away into boxes)... now it feels just like a halflife 2 playthrough

maybe somethings wrong my end, but it definitely felt much easier/dumbed down than before and once my crosshair reenabled itself (i remember the official unofficial patch had it '0' by default, great fun :)) i got bored and came here to moan about how easy it was compared the original... anyone else notice this or is there something up on my end? i liked a challenging minerva, even after several playthroughs still getting crushed by the combine here and there was one of the best elements for me

now ive lost interest a bit, especially after reading ,"[Minerva's] been put to sleep for now. I think she's done. She had a good outing though." i felt minerva was at a higher quality than halflife 2 itself, its a shame the story ends so soon

anyways its still a beautiful mod (love the combine architecture, and overall design/atmosphere is perfect), i am not suprised adam was hired, and i still look forward to future halflife installments with him on board

The Gravity-Gun wouldn't make sense here because it was made by Eli and is the only one available in the Half-Life universe. If Gordon has it, no one else does. I did felt handicaped without it, especially because I had such an urge to pick up those hopper mines or grenades to throw back at the enemy...

1singur is absolutely correct. I also think it would also be better if the crowbar and orange HEV suit were replaced with something else as they're pretty much linked to Gordon. Of course, this ia a mod and these changes would take a good bit of time to implement. If you noticed any differences in difficulty or in AI behavior they could be due to the bug fixes implemented to polish up the game or due to the fact that your skills are improving with repeated playthroughs.

"first play through having to take them out with no gravity gun was intense", i was talking about the game being much easier than the original release some years ago. there were roller mines that you had to use standard weapons on (magum worked well, but was a waste of bullets. i always used the sub machine gun) and now there are hopper mines you can " just stroll past".

Uhh, so the mines don't pop out of the ground? That's weird, I played this mod in the past, and it's exactly the same as it was before it was on Steam. Maybe your difficulty is turned down or something?

Uhh, so the mines don't pop out of the ground? That's weird, I played this mod in the past, and it's exactly the same as it was before it was on Steam. Maybe your difficulty is turned down or something?

Recently the hoppermines were replaced with rollermines, which makes it a tad more difficult because they cannot be destroied unless you direct them towards water. Since you don't have the Gravity Gun to pick up and throw them, you'll have to get into the water, risking to take damage from the leeches, untill the rollermine/s following you sink and explode.

Uhh, so the mines don't pop out of the ground? That's weird, I played this mod in the past, and it's exactly the same as it was before it was on Steam. Maybe your difficulty is turned down or something?

Recently the hoppermines were replaced with rollermines, which makes it a tad more difficult because they cannot be destroied unless you direct them towards water. Since you don't have the Gravity Gun to pick up and throw them, you'll have to get into the water, risking to take damage from the leeches, untill the rollermine/s following you sink and explode.

No, that's how it was before... check my first post. Nows it back to rollermines :) not sure if it's my imagination but seems to play better now too. Wish I knew how to mod, I'd make this game even harder! I loved the feeling, playing Minerva for the first time, of how powerful and relentless the combine were (they don't live up to their name in HL2).